


Nature of Human Fallacy

by Zerrat



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, F/F, Fantasy Politics, Mind Control, Post-Canon, Rogue AI, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:20:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zerrat/pseuds/Zerrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst monsters come from within us, and relics of the past become all the more dangerous when those hard-learned lessons are forgotten. Nine years following the Fall, the people of Cocoon have established themselves on Gran Pulse, and the people have grown complacent behind the walls of New Archylte City. </p><p>Those monsters and lessons forgotten are not gone, and the ex-l'Cie and the Pulsian military government unknowingly walk a fine line between life and absolute destruction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature of Human Fallacy

The pager went off as Lightning was halfway out of the door, and it was only by chance that she picked up the sound at all. Cursing softly under her breath, Lightning debated ignoring the thing and simply heading for Snow and Serah's place across the Steppe as originally planned. Commander Amodar had agreed readily to her request for some extended leave, so having that pager go off not two days in was just a little annoying. 

Lightning hesitated again, still almost out the door, as she remembered that Amodar had reluctantly promised her that he'd call her if they needed her. She'd thought he was joking, and he must have thought so too when he'd made the promise. Suddenly, it was all she could think of. 

A small part of her wanted to think it was good news, and that the scientists messing over Fang and Vanille had finally had a breakthrough after two years. As she moved quickly to the cupboard in which she'd stored her gear, she doubted that she'd be that lucky. The last time she'd been down to Research and Development, the scientists had been close-mouthed and reluctant to speak with her, and she'd known then that they had no progress to report – again. 

She hunted through her gear, finding it buried under her folded uniform, and it flashed and beeped again as she took hold of it. Her lips thinned as she noted that it _was_ from Amodar after all, and she wondered why he hadn't bothered calling her directly if it had been so damn important. Still, if she ignored the call and something bad happened after all... With a small, frustrated sound, Lightning reached into her pocket and grabbed her phone, entering Serah's number as she began to pull off her jacket. 

_"Light?"_ Serah's voice was confused and perhaps a little long-suffering. Either she had already guessed that Lightning was calling to cancel, or Snow was up to his usual tricks. _"What's up?"_

"Commander Amodar needs me to come in," Lightning explained, not bothering with niceties as Serah would see through them immediately. She balanced her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she grabbed her uniform and began to get dressed. "I think it's important."

She heard Serah sigh. 

_"Now that you're a lieutenant, it's always going to be 'important', isn't it?"_ Serah asked a little dryly, but Lightning caught the undercurrent of disappointment in her voice. 

"I know, I'm sorry." Lightning closed her eyes, pausing for a moment to sit on her bed. "You never know – it may end up being quick."

 _"Too late for our lunch plans, though,"_ Serah said, just a little petulantly, as if all Lightning needed to do was change her mind about going in. 

"You know that it's not going to be this way forever," Lightning reminded her quietly, before attempting to resume her task. "I'm not my job, and I have no desire to be sucked into it any more than I already have been." 

_"Why don't you quit already?"_ Serah asked, and Lightning switched her phone to the other shoulder as she moved to buckle on her pauldron. 

"Don't tempt me. For now, I need to go in and check on whatever trouble HQ have landed themselves in." Lightning deliberately lightened her tone as she added, "I'll drop by R and D and tell Hope 'hi' from you and Snow, if you like."

 _"And Sazh,"_ Serah corrected her with a short huff. _"He's going to be here too."_

"Sazh, too," Lightning agreed, her lips quirking in a small smile. She really was sorry that she was going to miss the gathering after all, but if she ignored Amodar's message, then she knew that she'd be thinking about what it could be for the rest of the day. "I'll see you all later on, perhaps."

"You'd better!" Serah replied with a laugh, and the line went dead as she ended the call. Lightning looked down at her phone's dark screen, tilting her head back and sighing. After her conversation with Serah, silence in the house was unnerving, and Lightning moved quickly to finish getting ready. A few minutes later and she was strapping her weapon holster to her belt as she swept out the door, making her way to headquarters. 

Whatever Amodar's problem was, Lightning hoped for his sake that it was important.

###

'Headquarters' these days was a tight and narrow Pulsian watchtower that reminded Lightning a great deal of Taejin's Tower. 

The Guardian Corps and the other two surviving army factions had re-purposed the spire in the early days following the Fall, and while they'd managed to set up in one of the less crumbling of the old watchtowers, at first the building had been somewhat hazardous to the unwary. As the years had gone on, eventually they'd been able to rebuild or reinforce most of the more problematic areas. The tower had been intended as a temporary measure only, especially after plans had been finalized for the new fortress behind Archylte City's growing walls, but two years on from the chaos following the Fall, and things were just as disorganized as ever. 

As normal, headquarters was filled to bursting with soldiers from all three major divisions, and the sound was deafening as Lightning quickly picked her way across the narrow tower floor, weaving in and out of loosely-packed groups. If there was trouble brewing, then not many knew of it, Lightning noted with an internal sigh. 

She nodded in greeting to some of the Corps men and women that she knew by sight if not by name, barely stopping half a second to commiserate with them over having been called into headquarters while on leave, before excusing herself from it all just as quickly. 

When Lightning had called Amodar to check in with him and to let him know that she was on her way over, he'd sounded calm enough – deceptively so. He'd been happy to hear from her of course, and told her in a low and careful tone that she was to meet him and the other Commanders in the top briefing room as soon as she was able. 

If the fact that Commander Amodar had called her in on her time off wasn't enough, the news that she was meeting him with the other two Commanders was enough to set anyone's alarm bells to ringing. While the Corps, PSICOM and the Cavalry all presented a united front to the survivors of Cocoon's Fall, generally the three divisions managed themselves with very little crossover to speak of. 

Lightning's lips were pressed in a grim line as she jogged up the narrow staircase running up the edge of the tower, going up the levels until she reached the highest floor and pushed her way into the briefing room. Her eyes swept the room, and she noted that all three Commanders were already seated at the large, steel table and were waiting on her. Her jaw tightened, and she stood to attention as Amodar and the others rose to their feet. 

"Nice of you to take the time out of your leave to join us, Lieutenant Farron," Amodar said pleasantly, motioning for her to take one of the chairs at the table. "I realize how difficult this is, but the situation is a little..."

"Unique," Commander Yaag Rosch finished for Amodar smoothly, still on his feet and leaning heavily on the ornate cane he'd taken to using. Lightning met Commander Rosch's one good eye, trying to remember that the man was fair and devoted to the people, for all he'd relentlessly hunted her and her fellow l'Cie. He was just following orders, Lightning told herself firmly, watching him steadily as he nodded and eased himself back into his chair. Even back before the Fall, he'd been entirely for the people, rather than chasing a personal grudge or glory. 

That last blast, after the l'Cie had left him before advancing on the Cradle, had really done a number on him. Rosch's face was a mess of burn scars, and he was unable to walk without the aid of his cane or his assistants. In spite of his ongoing pain and difficulty, he was throwing what was left of PSICOM into rebuilding civilization on Gran Pulse from the ground up, and ensuring that the survivors stayed safe, and Lightning had to admire that. 

In the same breath, if Rosch was at the table, then it was no idle threat that they were facing. 

_A rogue fal'Cie, perhaps,_ Lightning noted coolly as Commander Rygdea waved an irritable hand at Rosch's words. The remnants of the Cavalry – Rygdea's small division of the new military – were notoriously anti-fal'Cie, and Lightning could hardly blame them. After the failed operation in Orphan's Cradle, the division had splintered off from the Corps, becoming unruly and divisive until Rygdea had stepped up to command. 

While most of the Cavalry's resources and manpower had been reallocated to Research and Development to ensure that the survivors could go on without fal'Cie aid, Rygdea still fielded a small team of operatives. Word was, when there were rogue fal'Cie around, then the Cavalry was not far behind, PSICOM jurisdiction be damned. 

"Unique. Such a delicate way of putting it," Rygdea sneered in Rosch's direction. "Men die _en masse,_ and it's a 'unique' situation. A very PSICOM approach."

"Let it be noted that the Cavalry's involvement in this matter is neither required nor requested." Rosch's good eye darted over to Rygdea, and Lightning noted that the man's unburned hand clenched and unclenched, as if reflexively. This was not a new argument between them, then. 

Rygdea snorted and crossed his arms against his chest, and while he muttered rebelliously beneath his breath, he wisely refrained from making further comment. To Rygdea's right, Amodar heaved a sigh. Since the coup he'd staged during the Fall, he'd been run off his feet and consumed by the 'joys' of leadership. As Lightning's direct commander, she respected him for his dedication, but she didn't envy him his responsibilities.

"If we are all done showing that we're the toughest kids in the school yard, can we please move on? We've dragged Lieutenant Farron from her well-deserved leave, so let's make the most of what assistance she can provide us." Amodar's voice held a note of tension, and it spoke volumes of the mission at hand. 

Lightning settled her shoulders, looking directly at him as she waited. Whatever it was, she could handle it. 

"Of late, PSICOM have been exploring the possibilities of expansion to the northern continent. Resources, land whatever it is our teams find, we've need of it," Rosch told her, and his voice was low. "A few days ago, large conduits were found in the ground, and it was _hoped_ that perhaps they belonged to an existing Pulsian power grid. While we've nearly completed works on the preliminary grid for Archylte City, if we intend to repopulate the north, a pre-existing supply would be of great use to us."

"Still not seeing why it was they were sent in _unprepared,"_ Rygdea ground out, earning him a sharp look from Rosch and a long-suffering sigh from Amodar. 

"I'm sure the Cavalry well understands the errors that can be made when troops are sent into danger without intelligence," Rosch observed, and before Rygdea could open his mouth and sidetrack the briefing further, he continued. "Lieutenant Farron, the patrols that were following the conduits have gone... missing, and the best information we have on what occurred is some footage filmed by one of our more industrious soldiers."

Rosch's one eye was fixed on her, and he seemed to be waiting on something. 

"Do you have the recording here, Commander Rosch?" Lightning asked after a moment, and Rosch nodded, sliding a crystal tablet across the metal table to her and motioning for her to pick it up. 

"Please pay attention," Rosch warned as he settled back. "You will want to see this only once."

Lightning took the cool crystal in her hands, and as she raised it to eye level, the footage began to play. It was a grainy and dark recording, taken somewhere with little light, and for a long moment all she could hear was the sound of the soldier's gasping breath and the thunder of boots on some sort of metal surface. They blared out of the low-quality speakers, and Lightning's eyes narrowed as she tried to pick up detail from the recording. 

_"Twelve o'clock!"_ One of the soldiers roared, making the speakers of the tablet crackle, and the recording jostled wildly for a moment as the full squad of PSICOM elite opened fire on... something. Lightning thought she saw a shadow flicker in and out of the flashes of light from the gunfire, but even so, the squad did not let up for a good ten seconds, and then there was silence.

 _"Did we get it?"_ Another of the soldiers whispered, barely audible now. 

_"I don't know,"_ the soldier who had switched her helm's cam on replied breathlessly. _"That thing has got to be dead by now."_

There was another long moment of blackness and terrified breathing, and then a sound that could only be described as groaning metal started up. It was quiet at first but it grew in volume quickly, before one of the soldiers swore violently and then there was the sound of running again. The creak of metal did not stop, seemed to only grow louder as they ran until the filmer's breath was coming in desperate sobs. 

In the darkness, not five paces ahead from where the soldiers were, a red eye flashed on, and Lightning's breath seized in her throat. That eye, red and unblinking, identical to how she'd remembered the brands looking not long before being engulfed as a cie'th. It was the red eye on a cie'th's chest as it twisted and shuddered in wordless agony. It was that awful amalgamation of Barthandelus and Orphan, when it had looked down on them with a red eye, like some sort of cruel puppet master. 

The brand had been gone for two years, but even so it felt like the skin of Lightning's chest crawled, and she could barely breathe through the sudden tightness in her lungs. 

The eye in the recording darted forward, faster than Lightning believed possible, there were screams - and then only static. 

Lightning carefully and deliberately placed the crystal tablet back on the table, sucking in a long and steadying breath as she looked at it. She was almost afraid that the recording would start to play again, and she squashed that thought ruthlessly. 

"What is that thing?" Lightning asked, too disturbed by what she'd seen to bother with protocol. 

_That eye._

"Our team – before their last moments, which you observed just now – seemed to believe that they had found the central hub of Pulsian technology." Rosch leaned back again, waving a gloved hand as if to communicate the vastness of such a discovery. "It was an underground network, sleeping but not yet dead. They believed that the thing which used to run this network was an artificial intelligence. An AI. We believe that it was the AI that saw fit to kill them."

"They want you to lead a squad in there and take the thing out, if that wasn't clear," Rygdea scrubbed a hand over his face and massaged his temples for a moment. "You already know my thoughts on fal'Cie and all their genocidal family. Kill 'em, before they try to kill us again. But sending _more_ men – and my goddamn _friend_ – in when you have no idea of the threat level is not something I will support with a clear conscience."

So that was the real reason for Rygdea's presence at the briefing – to warn her of the danger of the mission and to bring a voice of dissent. But the fact that Lightning had been called in already meant that the decision had been made, and that Rygdea had been overruled, two votes to one. 

_Amodar supports this mission,_ Lightning noted, still feeling numb. 

"Permission to speak freely, Commander Amodar?" Lightning heard herself ask, and Amodar inclined his head. 

"Granted, Lieutenant."

"Do you know anything more _about_ this thing?" Lightning demanded of Rosch and Amodar, crossing her arms and meeting Amodar's eyes forcefully. "Or am I expected to just go in there and die too?"

"We only know that which we've gleaned from what records we've salvaged," Rosch told her before hesitating, maybe unsure of how much of their intel Lightning really needed. 

Amodar, fortunately, was far less tight with his information, and Lightning felt a surge of respect for her Commander as he began to lay out what little they knew. "It looks as if this... AI... was responsible for taking out the last of the Pulsians, maybe one hundred and fifty years back. The timestamps are inconsistent. Seems like the AI exceeded what programming parameters its makers built into it, went rogue, and decided that Pulse was better off without the Pulsians." 

Rygdea laughed, a short and bitter sound. "Poor idiots didn't know that it was their precious guardian killing them nice and slow-like – not 'til the very end."

"Why would it kill them?" Lightning asked quietly, resisting the urge to pick up the tablet and watch the video again, nightmarish as it was. Even the tiniest piece of information could prove useful when she went toe-to-toe with that thing. 

"Who knows what flaws lay in the programming?" Rosch countered with a gesture, his fingers steepled before his mouth.

"Point is," Amodar continued, a little more firmly than normal as he called attention back to the mission at hand. "Centralized network and power grids aside, it knows that we are here now. Whatever data on us that squad went in with – consider it all compromised and intel in the hands of the enemy. Even so, security risks to the military are the least of our problems. Now that it's awake, now that it might know who we are, what's going to stop it from activating and moving to eliminate us, too?"

The question hung in the air, and it was the one that Lightning knew she'd been called in to address however she could. The AI would be a danger to all of the Cocoon survivors, and she closed her eyes. Just as the survivors had finally started to stabilize and grow, that PSICOM squad had unwittingly unleashed another danger on them. And if that wasn't enough, Serah, Snow, Sazh, Dajh, Hope – all of her family would be at risk, and that wasn't something that she could turn her back on. 

_If that thing goes back to killing, then Fang and Vanille's sacrifice will have been for nothing after all._

There was really only one thing for it, and she suspected Amodar had known what her decision would be when he called her back.

"Count me in," Lightning said with a sharp nod, leaning back and trying not to think of that red eye and the sound of groaning metal. She smiled, a show of false bravado that would have made Snow proud. "After Orphan and the Fall, this thing is as good as spare parts."

Rosch and Amodar looked almost pleased with her acceptance of the mission. Rygdea, on the other hand, only looked more grim and rebellious. He rose to his feet abruptly, looking as if he was arguing with himself for a moment, before bracing his hands on the table top and leaning forward, his eyes narrowed. 

"If you're so damn set on fighting that bastard... then you're gonna need some better gear. Got some real nice stuff just out of R 'n' D, stuff that might rattle its parts a little, if you catch my meaning." By Rygdea's sudden, slightly feral grin, Lightning didn't have to wonder if by 'little' he meant 'lot'. "We'll take you down to Weapons and Tech, give you some of the fal'Cie-buster stuff. See you on the ground floor, Farron."

"Thank you, Commander," Lightning said with a nod, and watched as Rygdea strode out of the briefing room without a further word. She looked to Amodar in askance, and he waved his hand, indicating that she should remain seated. 

"A private word with you, Lieutenant, before you run off," Amodar told her, not bothering to move either as Rosch rose stiffly to his feet and began to limp from the room. As the door finally clicked shut behind the slightly irate PSICOM Commander, Amodar watched her with dark, thoughtful eyes, before rubbing his face with a long sigh. 

"Have you given what we discussed some further thought?" Amodar asked without further preamble, and Lightning gave him a steady, if slightly annoyed look. 

"That's what my month off was meant to give me time for," Lightning pointed out, a little dryly. "Calling me, two days into it, isn't doing your position any favors."

"You know that I'd be sorry to lose you." Amodar's voice was serious. "But I completely understand what you're feeling here. You feel like your chance to get out is fading quickly, that this job is going to eat you alive. I'm not going to lie to you and say that it doesn't do that – because it does. Just look at me."

Lightning leaned back, tapping a steady pattern on the tabletop with her finger. "I'm just not sure what I want. Do I want to stay, or do I want to see if there is something else for me out there?"

"Where can you do the most good?" Amodar raised his hand as she opened her mouth to argue with him. "I'm not asking you what is good for the people, or for the military. I'm asking – what's good for Lightning Farron?"

"Asking all the questions is the easy part," Lightning told him with a small smile. "I have to come up with the answer."

"I just want to be sure that you're asking yourself the _right_ questions, so that way, whatever the answer _is,_ it'll be what's best for you and what makes you happy."

###

Lightning made the trip across to Archylte City's growing research sector with Rygdea in his personal cruiser. The man was quieter than she normally knew him to be, so she had occupied herself by speaking with some of his personal guard. They were newer recruits, she'd eventually decided as their quick flight drew to an end. They'd likely been hired following the Fall - they lacked the raw anger and rigidity of the veteran Cavalry, and they seemed to be in the division for the love of technological growth rather than hate for fal'Cie. 

Research, development, improvement and the all-around betterment of the people of Cocoon. That had been what the Cavalry had sworn itself to, back when Cid Raines had led them. Rygdea, in spite of his deep-seated anger, and seen fit to build on Raines' hope for a better future. 

The thriving Research and Development sector – for lack of a better name yet – was just one of the ways in which the Cavalry tried to meet those goals Raines had set for them.

Weapons Development was holed up in a nondescript and windowless building off to the side of the flashier Energy and Technological Advancement buildings, and was protected from the more prying civilian eyes by just a handful of Cavalry soldiers stationed at the doors. In the current climate of contentment and rebuilding, guard duty on Weapons was little more than glorified busywork and a provision against a 'maybe' that would likely never come to pass. 

As they passed through the stainless steel doors, Lightning had to admit that she wouldn't trade spots with any of the bored-looking soldiers, even with a fight against a blood-thirsty AI looming in her mind. 

Lightning and Rygdea left the personal guard at the ground level and took the elevator down. Rygdea clearly had a destination in mind as he punched a button to take them another dozen levels below ground, but he was as silent then as he had been on the flight across to Archylte City. Lightning kept her own thoughts quiet, but she supposed that he was still unhappy about how the mission briefing had gone. She didn't remember asking him to start interfering with her missions under the banner of 'protecting her', and she snorted softly to herself as the elevator came to a stop. 

She could handle herself, and Rygdea knew it. That was why his insistence on watching her back was so irritating. 

"This way, Farron," Rygdea grunted as the elevator doors slid open, and he gestured for Lightning to exit first.

"I assume this is where that equipment is," Lightning said as they walked along the brightly lit hallways. They passed by dozens of glass doors that had been sealed shut, laboratories and testing rooms and work stations -

"You'd be right, not that it weren't obvious. I like to call this level 'fal'Cie Hell', but that's just me." Rygdea grinned as they stopped at one of the doors at the farthest end of the hallway, and he reached out and tapped a short sequence onto the keypad by the door. The frosted glass door slid open smoothly, and Lightning followed the Commander inside, wondering what 'fal'Cie-buster stuff' actually entailed.

The laboratory – it wasn't so much as a laboratory as it was an armory – was as brightly lit with fluorescent light as the rest of the level had been, but it was filled with rows upon rows of shelving with armor, weapons, ammunition, engine parts and crystals.

"Welcome to Lab B13-206, weapons cache. All our best firepower and protection is in here, for use against fal'Cie and only fal'Cie." Rygdea watched her as she took in the view, looking rather impressed with both his collection and her reaction to it. The sound of shoes on the ground snapped Lightning out of her daze, and she looked up to see Hope approaching, a wide smile on his face. 

Lightning had known that Hope was on work experience at Research and Development, because she'd suggested it herself. She had thought that Rygdea would have put him in Tech or Energy. He looked at home in the warehouse, so chances were that it was no one-off occurrence, she decided with just a little worry. 

"Lightning! And, uh, Commander?" Hope's sloppy imitation of a salute made Lightning cringe a internally, but it made Rygdea laugh. 

"Just showing out favorite Corps lieutenant all of the cool toys we've sequestered down here," Rygdea told Hope, crossing his arms against his chest. "A-52-10-G and all related gear. Know it?"

Lightning's lips twitched in amusement as Hope nodded enthusiastically, as if the long and nondescript serial number meant something to him. Hope's response seemed to satisfy Rygdea though, and he continued,

"Lieutenant Farron here is authorized to take the whole set for her next mission. Reckon you can get her sorted out, Estheim?"

"Sure, it's no problem." Hope smiled at Lightning again, and waved at her to follow along behind him. They went back through the warehouse, weaving between tall, tightly-packed shelves. Hope was distractedly explaining the archiving system the Cavalry's scientists were using to house their new weapons, and Lightning simply nodded along, just as absent to what he was saying and more concerned with the fact he was _there._

"You know," Lightning cut in when the steady stream of words paused just long enough for Hope to take a much-needed breath. "When I suggested the Cavalry as a way of filling your school's work experience quota, I was thinking you'd be doing something a little more... harmless."

Hope pulled a face as he slowed to a stop before one of the many shelves, leaning back against the solid wooden frame. 

"You shouldn't worry. Rygdea's just got me archiving, not... Ultima fission or anything like that. Besides, how different would archiving work at Energy or Tech be to this?" He was frowning at her though. Lightning's own lingering irritation toward Rygdea's unwarranted over-protectiveness flashed to mind, and she sighed softly as she relented. 

"Less that, more that I was hoping you'd see a bit more of the Pulsian Restoration Project," Lightning admitted quietly. A part of her had hoped that he would hear something definitive, or whether they were still working on the project at all. If she knew for sure that the project had been mothballed, she'd be able to raise the issue and make a few heads roll. 

"Yeah, I get what you mean." Hope's voice was subdued, and he looked down at his shoes. He sounded frustrated, though. "It would have been nice to see them, but none of them would let me in when I asked. No progress in three years is pretty bad, though."

"Projects need funding." She sounded a lot more accepting of this fact than she actually felt, but there was no need to let Hope know she shared his frustrations. "At the moment, what the people want is stability, so that's where all the gil is going. Not into reviving Fang and Vanille."

Hope looked more unhappy than ever with that answer, and Lightning could empathize – especially when she already knew that Fang and Vanille's statues were locked away in storage, in the dark and away from everything they'd cared about in life. How was that _fair?_

"How do we _fix_ it, though?" Hope asked, and it was a question Lightning had been asking herself for close to six months. 

"I'll do what I can to ensure some more funding is allocated." Lightning was unsure whether she actually had that sort of pull, hero l'Cie of the Fall aside, but it was better than just standing around lamenting the injustice of the situation. "We won't let them just sleep forever. Not when we still have the means to see that last Focus through to the end."

Hope smiled at the warm memory of their 'new Focus', and then he turned his attention back to the shelf they'd stopped in front of. 

"A-52-10-G, wasn't it?" Hope asked, all business again as he leaned down to examine the label on the nearest crate. Lightning didn't answer, having long since forgotten whatever weapon Rygdea had decided on, and instead helped Hope lift the crate down to the warehouse's concrete floor. The crate's lid came away easily under her enhanced strength, and as they looked into the contents of the box, Hope let out a low whistle. 

"Concussive grenades infused with non-elemental mana, a few magazines worth of crystal-laced bullets – dunno what components they used, but if it's in here, it's _not_ fit for regular use by the army – is that a crystal resonance emitter?!"

Lightning looked across at him as she loaded her blazefire saber with the modified bullets she'd been given, before stowing the rest of the ammunition and grenades in her pouches. She wondered if it was only _coincidence_ that the ammunition fitted her weapon, or if she factored more into the military's future plans than she was comfortable with. 

"Now I've got to ask – what's all this for?" Hope's eyes were wide as he examined a small device cradled in the palms of his hands, and Lightning was abruptly reminded of just how young he was. Sixteen was too young to be getting so entangled in the army's games, especially when that same army seemed to be setting themselves up as the next government, murmurs of a civilian democracy be damned. 

Lightning smiled humorlessly as she took the crystal resonance emitter from Hope's outstretched hands. 

"It's classified, I'm afraid," she told him, and he pulled a face at the stock response. 

As she clipped the crystal resonance emitter onto her belt, she tried to shake the lingering feeling that this was it. She might not ever see Serah or Hope or the rest of her family ever again, and that footage kept looping around in her head. She could hear screams, bones snapping and flesh tearing and then static-

Lightning let her breath out slowly. She couldn't let herself become distracted by that, as horrific as it had been, and there was no need to worry Hope, either. She reached forward and clasped his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly before turning to leave. 

"Is it really that bad?" Hope asked quietly, and Lightning felt the words stick in her throat. After a few moments, she shook her head, and she didn't look back as she left him there.

###

Archylte City's high walls and growing skyscrapers fall away from cockpit's view all too quickly, and it all faded into the murky distance as the PSICOM transporter rocketed away, across mountains and then ocean as they headed for the northern continent. 

Lightning had never been there herself, and neither Fang nor Vanille had mentioned much of Gran Pulse aside from what they'd actually seen during the Focus. A PSICOM scouter team had stumbled upon it, and in the months following the discovery, her excitement had dulled as the land had been sealed off. Commander Yaag Rosch had wanted to 'verify' the 'safety' of the new area, and all further scouting and missions to the north had been suspended. 

Until the briefing that morning, Lightning hadn't spared the northern continent much more than a thought, and now there was another Pulsian threat looming from the unknown. 

Judging by the maps and additional information that Rosch had provided Lightning prior to departure, the trip to the north would take a couple of hours, so she had time to burn. She needed to get that AI footage out of her mind, so she left the cockpit and found her way through to the transporter's cavernous dispatch. 

The rest of the soldiers that Rosch had selected for the mission were there, all talking and laughing in a way that was comforting in its familiarity. There were perhaps twenty of the PSICOM elite, all lacking the trademark gas masks and glowing goggles that had given Lightning a few uneasy nights since the Purge, and she joined them without a word.

It was if someone had simply flicked a switch, because the conversation died immediately. Lightning hadn't been expecting anything different, what with the uneasy history that lay between the Pulsian l'Cie and PSICOM. 

"Well," one of the PSICOM elite near the hull wall said into the uncomfortable silence. "If the hero l'Cie is here, then this is no ordinary search-and-destroy, I think."

Lightning easily picked out the speaker – a short, dark-haired woman – and she crossed the dispatch to speak with the PSICOM elite.

"Commander Rosch didn't see fit to share the intel with you?" Lightning asked in a low voice, just a little bit alarmed at Rosch's overblown need for secrecy. She recalled how he'd hesitated in the briefing, and how quickly Amodar had moved to filled her in. She wondered how much Yaag Rosch would have neglected to tell her, if he hadn't been pushed. 

"He told us plenty," the PSICOM soldier said, raising her eyebrow. "It's just that having one of the l'Cie that took out Orphan on board... make it seem all the more serious business. Jobs, by the way."

Relieved at the news, Lightning accepted the woman's proffered hand. 

"How much did he tell you?" Lightning asked, and the PSICOM woman – Jobs, Lightning supposed – shrugged easily. 

"Rogue AI, kill and grill. All very simple, except the part where it likes to play." Jobs laughed shortly. "Makes a nice change from the usual fal'Cie fare, since there's no risk of becoming a l'Cie. No offense, of course."

"None taken." Lightning felt a small smile tug at the corners of her lips. "Been with PSICOM long?"

"Since before the Purge," Jobs replied lazily, seeming to guess what Lightning had been fishing for. "I consider myself lucky that I was never deployed in the l'Cie operations, given the way you razed the rest of PSICOM."

Lightning was unsure of how she was meant to respond to that, so she let the silence stretch on, trying to keep her thoughts away from shredding soldiers and red eyes in the darkness. Had Fang or Vanille known about the AI, or had it only been developed after the War of Transgression? She tried to busy herself by checking her equipment for the fifth time since boarding the transporter, wishing that she had Fang there to watch her back for the mission. Any of the other l'Cie would have been welcome, but Fang's knowledge of Gran Pulse and her sheer strength would have been particularly useful. 

There was a crack and the sound of paper shuffling off to the side, and Lightning frowned as Jobs riffled the stack of cards in her hands with practiced ease. 

"You in?" Jobs asked her as some of the other PSICOM elite gathered around her. 

Lightning could stand off to the side awkwardly as she kept replaying that footage of the AI in her head, or she could rob a few of PSICOM's best of their pay-checks. The answer was obvious, and Lightning smirked as she nodded and bought in.

###

The AI's cavern was deep underground, beyond a vast network of tunnels that Lightning and the PSICOM elite navigated with assistance from the doomed scout team's tracking devices and the check-in logs. In contrast to the laughter and games of the trip to the northern continent, the PSICOM soldiers were grim and silent, and their gas masks and burning eyes made them all look one and the same. It was by height alone that Lightning knew that Jobs was walking a few paces ahead of her. 

After perhaps an hour of walking through wide, scorched tunnels, they came upon the AI's vault and the blast doors that had sealed it from the world. Lightning approached the doors without hesitation, examining it with a critical eye. Consistent with Rosch's information, the doors looked as though they'd only recently been forced open, and deep scores marking the aged metal. There were faded words painted on the door, and a symbol. 

Lightning's poor grip of Pulsian lettering wasn't enough to help her pick out what the vault was meant to be called, but she remembered that Amodar had guessed that it had been the central hub of all Pulsian networks and the source of the AI that had gone on to end everything. 

As Lightning and the PSICOM edged into the darkness beyond, Lightning couldn't help but feel that the whole place smelled like an open grave. She drew her blazefire saber from its case on her hip, taking taking comfort from the weight of the weapon as the other soldiers fanned out around her. They moved quickly and silently though the tight corridors, their way lit only by the small flashlights some of the elite had clipped onto their weapons and Lightning's own condensed fire spell. 

The surface of the narrow corridors were smooth and flawless, and it was a strange contrast to the scorched and twisted metal that had marred the tunnels before. Lightning shook her head, trying to balance her awareness of her surroundings with the need to focus on what lay ahead. The crawling sensation in the back of her head only grew as they passed through another set of containment doors that had been wrenched wide open.

The _feel_ of the place seemed to shift, and Lightning didn't need her fire spell to know that they'd entered a huge room. The sound of boots rolled in echoes off the stainless steel walls, and Lightning raised her spell higher, her eyes narrowed against the darkness. 

"So this was where it happened," one of the PSICOM soldiers said though the audio equipment in his gas mask, and a group of three men knelt by something just beyond Lightning's circle of light. Lightning quickly moved to examine their findings, and her stomach sank as she laid eyes on the somewhat gruesome remains. The body – human, from what best she could tell – was mangled and broken, and missing vital things such as a head or legs. 

Lightning hadn't been foolish enough to believe that they'd find the scouts alive, but to die in such a way would have been agonizing. 

She raised her eyes, and she moved quickly through the room, noting the positions held by the rest of the soldiers and mentally cataloging what remains she could see. There were easily twenty bodies strewn about the area, both in PSICOM uniforms and in clothing that Lightning could only guess was standard Pulsian military gear. There were human remains that were rotted away to bones, and as the light of her fire spell swept the chamber, some of the bones gleamed crystalline, the mark of a l'Cie with a highly advanced brand.

Lightning's jaw tightened. It looked as though being a l'Cie was not going to be the edge she'd hoped for. 

"What's the plan?" one of the PSICOM elite at Lightning's shoulders asked, and despite the distortion of the mask and the audio equipment, Lightning recognized that the speaker was Jobs. 

"We keep searching," Lightning said, her eyes still fixed on the dead l'Cie. She rolled her shoulders as her skin prickled, but she had to get a grip on the situation or they were all as good as dead. "We find whatever it is that is killing our people, and we shut the whole system down."

The handful of PSICOM elite at her heels nodded sharply at her words and began to fan out around her as they moved to search the area more thoroughly. A cursory glance around showed that there were a number of doors leading from the area, all showing far more damage than the other blast doors. Gunfire scores, dents, more scorch marks – Lightning had to wonder how it was that the Pulsians had died, never mind the scouts. 

She paused in her slow circuit of the huge, dark room, watching the PSICOM elite continue their search for a moment before turning to what looked like an ancient, dusty computer console. She reached out hesitantly, brushing the grim aside with her bare fingertips as she struggled to tame sense of the bold, Pulsian lettering. The back of her neck prickled again as her lips moved, and at the edge of her enhanced hearing, she heard something slither in the dark. 

It was then that she understood that it was there with them already, and the memory of that awful red eye against blackness flashed to mind as she tensed. 

"It's here," Lightning's voice was perfectly calm, even as every one of her senses trained on the unknown and her heart felt like it was pounding against her ribcage. 

"What was that?" Jobs hissed, freezing where she stood in the midst of examining the l'Cie skeleton. 

"The AI," Lightning clarified slowly as she scanned the room. "It's already in here." 

Lightning began to edge toward Jobs, because the AI's drone could be anywhere, and she desperately needed someone to watch her back. Even if Jobs was only human, the extra set of eyes and another gun could only be useful. She stood back to back with other woman, trying to listen for the sound of groaning metal over the curses and chaotic movements of the other soldiers. 

"Be ready to open fire," Lightning told them, louder this time to try to rally them, and that was when rapid, deafening gunfire roared from above them. 

Lightning threw herself to the side and _kept_ running without missing a beat as chains of gunfire tracked its way behind her. She heard screams as some of the soldiers didn't – or _couldn't_ – move out of the way in time. Lightning didn't even know their names, but it was not the time for regrets as her eyes tracked the flashes of light and explosive sound – _there._ A bolt of thundaga streaked from her outstretched hand, lighting up the barrels of a large machine gun that had been anchored to the ceiling for an instant before the powerful spell disintegrated it.

There was silence for a few heartbeats, and Lightning could hear terrified panting and agonized whimpers from the PSICOM soldiers that had been gunned down but still lived. Her eyes strained to pierce the darkness now that her fire spell was gone, and she quickly liberated a flashlight from the scope of a dead man's gun. She'd just straightened as the sound of metal creaking and groaning reached her ears, and her stomach clenched. 

"Right," she murmured to herself, and then said more loudly, "Be ready to fire and move, this thing is in here with us and we _know_ it's got weapons everywhere -"

Lightning cut herself off as the whole room seemed to scream around them, and she was running even before the hidden weaponry on the walls opened fire. She moved on instinct, letting her natural speed and the l'Cie abilities she'd honed aid her movements as she weaved, dodged and evaded as best as she could. She used all the enhancing magic she could cast without slowing, and everything around her was just a blur of light and awful noise. 

There was so much gunfire, and the PSICOM elite were only human – she knew that they were as good as dead as they fell around her. 

Maybe later the shock and horror would set in, but at that moment it was all Lightning could do to stay alive. 

In all the blur of momentum, it was only by chance that Lightning caught sight of the red eye watching her from by one of the doors in the darkness. She didn't stop to think as she streaked forward, pushing herself to the very limit of her haste spell as gunfire hammered on the metal floor behind her and ricocheted wildly around the vault in a deafening avalanche of noise. 

The red eye flickered out as Lightning tore through the doorway, but at least she was out of the deathtrap and away from the screams that were starting to gurgle out. 

She didn't even have time to slow her stride, as it was like stepping out of the freezer and into the fire when more gunfire opened up behind her. Lightning swore violently and rolled to the side, ducking behind the jut of a wall and breathing hard. 

The whole place was a weapon, Lightning realized. The AI had control of every panel and system, its drone was not the thing that had killed the scouts as she'd believed – it had commandeered what defensive systems the Pulsians had installed. 

Lightning swallowed, willing her breathing to steady. From beyond her sheltered alcove, the gunfire had ceased and there was nothing but silence, but she harbored no doubts that it would start up again if she moved. It was a deathtrap out there, and she had no idea of where the central systems were! She could run around the network of tunnels until she dropped dead from exhaustion, and still never come close to finding it, she realized with a sinking stomach. 

The skin between her shoulder blades prickled in warning, and Lightning did not react fast enough as ropes of wire and cable flashed out of the darkness, coiling around her legs and body, tight enough to bruise her skin and they only constricted tighter. 

Without hesitation, Lightning's blazefire saber sliced through the cables and wires in one smooth and fluid movement. Shaken by the close call, Lightning knew that she had to keep running and moving, system weapons or not, because if the AI got a hold of her -

She sprinted out from her cover, and as she'd predicted she heard gunfire pelt at the ground at her heels. Some of the bullets grazed her on ricochet, and baring her teeth, Lightning grabbed one of the concussive grenades from her belt and threw it over her shoulder. The resulting explosive force made her stumble for a step, but she smiled viciously as the gunfire from the turret ceased almost immediately. She kept running though, and at the end of the corridor, a small red light flicked on. 

Lightning's breath froze in her throat, but as she approached, she saw that it was just a panel set into the wall, a tiny screen of blackness and red lights.

 _"Identity. Unknown. Classification. Gran Pulse l'Cie. Anima. Origin. Risk level. High."_ The voice was disjointed, clippings of a recorded human voice with a strong Pulsian accent, and the sound seemed to come from everywhere in the hallway. 

_"Proceed with caution. Data. Required."_

Lightning's eyes narrowed – the red light was still on, so that meant that the thing was still there, as if waiting for something. 

"Why did you kill them, if all you wanted was data?" Lightning demanded of it, unable to believe that there could be a peaceful resolution to the games but needing to try anyway. 

The AI's recorded voice was silent, and the red light finally went dark. Lightning tensed as the hallway groaned around her, and she swallowed her anger. She had to focus on the job at hand, and it wasn't going to get any easier from the sound of more panels sliding open. 

"Right..." she murmured, and she was already moving before the next round began.

###

Lightning wasn't sure how long she'd been down in the never-ending network of interconnecting tunnels, because everything had long ago blurred together in the darkness and the fury of endless battle. Her body ached from injuries that she'd only been able to partially heal, from near misses and from forcing herself to keep running when she had nothing left to give. She was exhausted, but every time she stopped to catch her breath for more than a few minutes, she'd hear that slithering sound at the edge of her hearing. 

Like clockwork, a red eye would open and it would watch as she thwarted or fled from the latest of its traps, before flickering out after a few more moments of unnerving silence. It had not addressed Lightning since that first time, but Lightning supposed that she fully understood exactly what it had meant when it had decided to obtain further data.

She was crouched behind the sharp corner of the hallway, her back pressed hard against the cold metal and feeling the seconds tick down until the next 'test'. She was struggling to catch her breath now, and she closed her eyes for just a moment. White sparks of damning light danced under her eyelids as exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her again. She shook her head wearily, because she had to stay awake and alert. Otherwise, she'd end up just like those scouts and the PSICOM elite.

Eden, she was sick of the _games,_ but she had no idea of where the central control was so she could end things. 

Her eyes narrowed as she heard footsteps echo down the hallway, and her unsteady breath faltered as the implications hit her like a sucker punch. Who the hell was alive in there with her? She remembered the PSICOM soldiers' screams end as they died -

With her muscles still trembling fitfully, Lightning leaned against the wall and cautiously peered around the corner. In the shaking light of her dying flashlight, three of the PSICOM elite advanced on her, and she ducked back behind her cover, exhaling sharply in a weary laugh. What did that thing take her for? Did it hope that she would spring out, try to warn the PSICOM soldiers of the AI's traps? Did it think she wouldn't notice the unnatural grace as they walked, or the fact that there were goddamn wires coming out from the back of their necks?

Whether the three PSICOM elite were alive or dead was beside the point. The AI was using them, playing with them as if they were grotesque puppets in the sick game it played with Lightning. Even so, she still wouldn't be able to live with herself if she left them like that, even if confronting them directly could be another of the AI's desired goals. 

She hadn't cared about Barthandelus' manipulations back during the Fall, and she'd be damned if she cared now. 

Lightning's blazefire saber was ready as the smoothly rose to her feet, and she settled her shoulders. She strode out from behind the corner, and as expected, the PSICOM elite didn't stop as they raised their weapons. She paused, placing a hand on her hip.

"You disgust me," Lightning told the AI's watching red eye, and then she flashed forward. Her muscles screamed with physical and magical exhaustion, and she darted to the side as the PSICOM soldiers opened fire. 

She felt a bullet skim a hair's breadth away her shoulder as her Protect spell shimmered and died, and then she cursed as another grazed her thigh. The PSICOM elite moved with a disturbing unity, each turning their heads in her direction to watch her as she barreled into the first of them. The force of her charge knocked him to the ground, and she didn't stop to let the AI recalculate control of its puppets as her hand flashed out, knocking the gun clean out of the soldier's hands and slamming her elbow into the side of the man's head. 

Whirling around, Lightning lashed out with her blazefire saber toward the last of the AI's puppets, and sparks flew as with one smooth movement she sliced through the cables that had been fed into the PSICOM soldier's neck. There was a scream of agony from behind the gas mask, and the soldier reached up with bloodied hands to rip the last of the wires free. 

Lightning's fading flashlight settled on the other two soldiers, and she smiled humorlessly. Lightning's blazefire saber arced in a downward slice as she again severed the AI's control from the remaining two soldiers, and they too began to scream as horrifying reality and pain set in. 

She knelt by the first PSICOM soldier she'd freed, laying a steadying hand on their shoulder as she held another fire spell in the palm of her hand. The elite's breath shuddered in and out, caught somewhere between hyperventilating and sobbing, and Lightning helped them – her – pull the gas mask free. 

"You look like you've seen better days," Lightning told Jobs mildly as the woman dry-retched off to the side for a few moments. In the light cast by the fire spell, Lightning could see the blood matting in her hair and running down her neck and throat from where the wires had been placed. It took more concentration than it should have, but Lightning summoned a weak cure spell to seal the injuries for each of the elite. 

As she worked, she kept one eye trained on the AI's blinking red panel though, and all her senses strained as she tried to predict whatever danger would be next. When Lightning had done what she could for the injured soldiers, she rose to her feet wearily. 

"It was in our heads," Jobs rasped into the silence, gripping her own shoulder hard. "Clear as day. We couldn't move, because it moved for us. But I – I saw enough. Just enough."

Lightning turned to the other woman, her eyes narrowing. "What did you see?"

"Central command, it calls it. Where the AI runs from. Crystals and gears and – it's not far from here." Jobs sucked in an unsteady breath, as if trying to rally her courage. "Back the way we came, hard left at the first intersection, then right at the next fork. Hard left at the final intersection. It's a door, sealed shut, but don't let that stop you from tearing that wannabe fal'Cie a new one."

"You got it. Are you and the others fine to wait here?" Lightning asked softly. She doubted that Jobs or the other two elite would be anything other than liabilities, but she had to ask.

Jobs closed her eyes, and Lightning heard her swallow hard. 

"Gonna catch a lot of shit for this, but I am staying as far away from that thing as I can. I bet it's the same for the boys over there." Jobs let her head thump back against the steel wall, before fixing Lightning with one bloodshot eye. "Don't let it get to you."

"I'll see you guys after it's done, don't you worry." Lightning nodded, and with Jobs' instructions in her mind, she left the PSICOM survivors behind.

###

When Lightning entered the chamber that Jobs had described, she immediately understood what the woman had meant about it being a 'wannabe fal'Cie'. In the low lighting she could see delicate crystal gears working in panels along the walls and in the ceiling, all making some advanced network that bought to mind Anima in the Vestige, or Orphan's Cradle. With a tight jaw, she scanned the cogs, the light from her fire spell glinting off the moving parts.

It all lacked the alien delicacy she remembered from the fal'Cie though – perhaps the Pulsians had simply based the system off them. Any wonder the thing had gone genocidal then, because these days it seemed to be a requirement for a fal'Cie.

Lightning cautiously moved deeper into the chambers, tense and ready to fight at the mere suggestion of danger. She half hoped that the Pulsian fools that had built the AI followed the general principles of fal'Cie design – that no matter how enormous the vestige, that there would be some central focus of awareness, a head or a body in some twisted call back to humanity.

The construct widened into a small room, with passages branching off on either side, and Lightning tightened her grip on her weapon as light fell upon what she was seeking. She wasn't sure what stopped her from simply opening fire on the thing immediately – maybe fear, the suspicion that it had been too easy to find, surprise that it would look so human.

As the thing turned, that awful red eye of light on its visor, she swallowed any lingering reservations and dashed to the side, opening fire as the thing extended a hand and cables whipped out from its palm. She threw herself back as wires arched through the air, moving like serpents and changing direction to come at her again. After so long fighting the AI's death traps, the next time she dodged, she was an instant too slow and the cables scored her shoulder.

Lightning didn't bother to stop and heal, and forced herself to leap up and over the wires, fire spells flowing from her finger tips as she struggled to cast enough light on the battle. As her boots impacted against the wall, she used it as a springboard and launched herself at the robot or drone or whatever it was.

She severed the wires from its hand in one smooth motion as her other shoulder rammed against the thing's unforgiving chest plate. Lightning struggled to catch her breath and right herself, but that thing's arm snapped up faster than she could believe. It swept her into the wall almost contemptuously, leaving her to attempt to blink the white spots dancing in her eyes.

Not bothering to shake off the pain, she thrust her hand out, unbearable heat racing along her forearm as she cast a firaga spell at it. That red eye surged forward in the mix of darkness and red light, wires suddenly everywhere, pinning Lightning's arms to her sides as the full firaga spell impacted on the thing's chest plate. The magic roared, licking at the metal uselessly for a few moments before finally sputtering out.

She'd gotten a good look at it, though, the best she'd had yet.

It was taller than Lightning by a full head, and while the proportions were elongated it was still so clearly based on a human in a way the fal'Cie would never have been. The side of the glass-smooth visor was gone, revealing the delicate machinery sparking and shuddering as it continued to work in spite of the damage. The drone's armor was scorched and torn, and some of the moving parts fully exposed where plates had been ripped away entirely.

So the Pulsians had not gone down without a fight, Lightning noted with a set jaw.

 _"Gran Pulse l'Cie. Identify."_ The drone spoke in that same disjointed recording of a woman's voice, and the red eye on its shattered helm moved forward and pushed close.

"I don't think so," Lightning said, gritting her teeth as EVE's hold on her tightened, the wires bruising and cutting into her skin. Her breath was ragged by the time she'd rallied enough to speak again, and when she looked up, she bared her teeth defiantly. "I don't have to tell you a thing, and I haven't brought any data for you to plunder again."

If possible, that thing pushed closer, so close that Lightning could hear the gears working in the darkness.

_"I. Am. EVE. Alliance or Paddran. Identify."_

"Neither." Lightning could have laughed. Was it actually unsure if it really had finished off the last of the Pulsians? Lightning had no idea of what it meant by 'Alliance', but she remembered the ruins of a city – Paddra – from the Vallis Media. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered the damage to the drone's armor. Maybe it hadn't chosen to go into stasis after its final attack. Maybe the damage had forced it to go under before it was able to complete its plans.

The wires tightened warningly around Lightning again, and something began to whir quietly in the dark. Lightning could hear her own breath, shaky and harsh, and knew that she had to come up with some way out because she wasn't sure how much longer she could bluff the AI.

A series of beeps sounded.

 _"Magical signature. Etro. Anima. Ragnarok. How."_ It was the same flat, disjointed set of words, but it seemed almost questioning, it seemed unsure.

Lightning's mind flashed back to the battle with Orphan – the l'Cie had been given a reprieve from Etro herself. That was what it had been trying to figure out as it toyed with her? Even if Lightning had any answers for it, she'd be damned before she'd co-operate with it after all she'd seen it do.

As the silence stretched, Lightning stared into the red eye and willed herself to ignore her fear. Her hands, bound at her sides, flexed and her finger tips grazed the top of something potentially useful.

 _"Humans. Who."_ There was a long moment of quiet again as EVE's grip tightened like a vise around Lightning. _"Your voluntary co-operation is not necessary."_

That sentence was flawless, a single recording rather than many strung together, and Lightning felt her breath catch as she heard crystal and metal gears whir in the oppressive blackness. No co-operation necessary? Lightning did not like what that implied, and she strained against the cables, her fingertips brushing her pockets once more -

Eden, she was not sure what the crystal resonance emitter was actually meant to do, but as she activated it and let it clatter to the floor between herself and EVE's drone, she decided that surely it would be better for her than whatever tortures EVE had planned.

The red eye moved, tracking down, and Lightning could have sworn that EVE _hesitated._

Waves of white light erupted from the tiny device that had landed between them, and Lightning felt herself thrown to the ground as something made every fibre of her body scream in agony. Her vision went black for a few moments as she felt her whole body convulse, and she wasn't sure how long it was until she could open her eyes again. It felt as though every cell in her body was threatening to up and die on her, but that feeling of pain and overwhelming nausea slowly faded. She wasted precious seconds as her arms gave out when she tried to push herself to her feet the first time, blood splattering to the floor as she coughed.

The cure spell she cast on herself didn't seem to take hold as it should have, and she reached out for where her weapon had fallen.

To her left, she heard gears whir uselessly, a series of clicks and beeps filling the sudden silence. EVE's drone looked far worse for wear as it struggled to rise, one of its arms shattered in pieces over the ground. It wasn't stopping though, and that red eye flickered fitfully to life. Lightning's breath - still tasting of blood - seized in her throat, and driven by a spike of adrenaline, she lunged across the ground, her fingertips closing about the hilt of her blazefire saber with just enough time to raise it to defend against the drone's strike.

Lightning's shoulder jarred as she halted the overhead strike with a solid block, and she rolled backwards and to her feet in time to deflect EVE's next wild swing.

 _"You. Will not. Stop the. Directive."_ EVE's recorded speech was fuzzy and almost indistinct, but it told Lightning that it was going to take things more seriously now. No more toying around as it attempted to fill the gaps in its knowledge - it was time to kill or be killed.

It wasn't moving as quick as it was before, Lightning realised as she intercepted another of its strikes and retaliated with her own blade scoring across its chest plate and tearing at loosened joints. However badly the crystal resonance emitter had effected Lightning, what it had done to EVE's drone was far worse.

It still wasn't slowed down enough, and Lightning was fighting through a haze of exhaustion and pain. She slipped up, automatically attacking when she should have blocked, and one of EVE's haymakers glanced off her shoulder. Lightning bit back her agony and rolled with the strike, coming to her feet a few paces away from EVE before breaking into a run.

Fighting EVE's drone would get her nowhere - she needed to find what was controlling the drone, what was weaponising the whole area and take it out. With that gone, the drone would be too, and Lightning cursed herself for having gotten so distracted with the last of EVE's defences.

She didn't have to stop to check if EVE was following along as she tore down the widening chamber, her breath rattling dangerously as she pushed herself to her limits for one last time.

There it was - a delicate network of crystals right where the gears and light in the walls all converged, spreading out through the whole room before arcing upward in a tall spire that reminded her so much of the crystal pillar that held up Cocoon. It hardly mattered how beautiful the thing was, because Lightning already had the Ruinga charged at her fingertips.

She stretched out her hand desperately as she heard EVE's drone close in on her, and the tiny sphere of non-elemental magic streaked out toward the crystals. Lightning allowed the drone to tackle her and throw her to the ground, her blazefire saber torn from her grasp, and she knew she'd hit true as silver magic burst somewhere behind her.

It should have been the end of it, because the crystal network _was_ EVE and with it gone and no longer sending commands, the drone should have stopped. Lightning realised, as it drew its one good arm back to tear her head from her shoulders, that EVE would have predicted such an action.

In response, it had transferred whatever basic awareness it had to the drone as some sort of last fail safe, banking on her exhaustion and her _stupidity,_ and now it was going to kill her. Lightning's jaw clenched as she barely evaded the drone's strike, meeting that thing's red eye as it drew back again. She could see the damaged gears and crystal behind its visor, barely working.

It was a long shot, but Lightning had banked on worse odds before.

She evaded the next strike with a jerk, and her own fist lashed upward, shattering the darkened glass visor and exposing the brilliant crystal behind it. 

_"You. Will not-"_

Lightning reached forward into the working crystal gears, smashing both of her hands through the remains of EVE's hardware and pulling. She could feel the flesh of her hands shredding as she pulled, she could hear EVE's recorded message scrambling but she did not stop.

With a desperate roar, she ripped the smashed crystals free of EVE's helm. As the blood-stained parts went dark and lifeless in her shaking hands, EVE slumped. The command room went pitch black.

With a groan, Lightning shoved the drone off to the side, biting back her cry of agony as she forced her ruined hands to open. The majority of the metal parts fell to the metal floor and shattered, but there were shards - some big, some small - still lodged in there. 

Lightning collapsed on the ground a few minutes, gasping for breath as she tried to pull them all free, but she had to report back, go show Jobs and the others that she was alive, that she'd won.

It was over.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like updates as to current projects or just want to chat, feel free to come visit me on my tumblr: [zerrat](http://zerrat.tumblr.com/) (personal) and [zerratwritesstuff](http://zerratwritesstuff.tumblr.com) (writing)!


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